


As the World Ends

by estelraca



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, kissing at the end of the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:21:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29273157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelraca/pseuds/estelraca
Summary: Yang should have kissed Blake so many times during the last year, but it's still better late than never, even if the world seems to be ending around them.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	As the World Ends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ScarletCorvid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletCorvid/gifts).



> Spoilers through pretty much all the seasons, with the last part set in the vague-future of Everything Going Wrong. I love these two and really want them to kiss and hope this helps alleviate some of your pain!

_As the World Ends_

1.

She could have kissed Blake at the dance.

It would have been so easy. It would have been so _right_. They were children, then, doing what children did—dancing, laughing, enjoying themselves.

They didn't _think_ of themselves as children then. Even when you _are_ a child, you never want to _think_ that you are. You never want to imagine that you're in a good place, that the trials you're facing are small, that everything you love is a carefully-constructed house of cards that could come tumbling down.

Besides, Yang had Ruby in her team. She had her baby sister, and that meant she was grown-up, she was powerful, she was _in control_.

She could have kissed Blake that night, but she didn't. Because of the team—they had come together so well now, worked _so well_ together, and she didn't want to ruin it. Because of Blake—Blake had been through so much, and was still hurting from a relationship Yang was just starting to see the edges of.

Because of Yang herself. She was used to being fast and smooth, to riding the edges of acceptable behavior. She was used to flirting because it was fun, to dancing because it was freeing. To make that all serious—to kiss a teammate—she wasn't ready for it yet.

So she asked Blake for a dance, and they twirled around the floor, and she gave Blake's hand a squeeze when they were done, and that was that.

There was time, after all, for so much more.

2.

She could have kissed Blake after Adam.

She could have kissed her when they were lying side by side, bleeding, broken, battered in ways Yang didn't even know one could be battered.

It shouldn't have been Yang's place to make the decision. Yang was the one who hurt worse after Adam, even if Blake was bleeding so hard from invisible wounds it made the actual blood on her skin pale to insignificance.

Yang lost a part of _herself_. They had given her medications to dampen the pain. They had bandaged the wound and assured her that even though it was grievous, it wasn't career-ending. She could learn to manage with only one flesh-and-blood hand. She'd still be a Huntress.

She could've said she didn't care about the future right then. She could've said she only cared about who survived, who walked away, and who didn't.

It would've been a lie. She cared about so much more.

All Blake wanted to do was apologize. All Blake wanted to do was take the blame for what had happened, heaping Adam's crimes on her own shoulders. In a perfect world—no, just a _better_ world—Blake would have leaned in and kissed her and they would have moved on together.

But Blake didn't.

And Yang could have, but the last time she moved without thinking—the last time she _trusted_ herself—Adam's sword cut through her, severing her from the life she thought she'd have.

They were both cowards that night, but at least they weren't alone.

3.

Yang could have kissed Blake in Mistral.

That's what one did, right? In all the stories that Yang read to Ruby as a child, in all the stories Blake read to avoid having to deal with the real world around her, that's how it happened. The hero made mistakes; the hero returned just in time to fix everything; the heroine forgave them and kissed them and everyone lived happily ever after.

Yang always knew she would be a shit heroine.

She's relieved, of course—thrilled to see Blake alive and well and unharmed despite everything that happened. Not just unharmed—she looked _good_ , standing next to the other faunus. She looked confident and strong and _ready_ , in a way Yang didn't think she'd ever seen Blake look before.

And it made Yang _hate_ her, briefly, even as relief and love washed through her. Blake went away and came back healed, while Yang...

Yang was still figuring out how not to be broken.

They did what they needed to. They defeated Salem's people. They protected Oscar and they retrieved the lamp and Yang proved that even broken she was better than the damaged roots from which she sprang.

They welcomed Blake back to Team RWBY, because there really wasn't any other choice to be made.

And Yang looked at Blake's lips, and at the way Blake's eyes looked at Yang's prosthetic hand, and she didn't kiss her.

This wasn't a fairy tale, after all, and Yang was never going to be anyone's princess.

4.

They could have kissed after they killed Adam.

It would have been a little bit grisly, sure, both of them spattered in blood from the killing blows. But part of being Huntresses was pulling hope from grisly reality.

It would have been a moment of comfort, a way to help cleanse Adam from both their minds, scrub the remnants of his words from both their hearts.

Yang cupped her fingers around Blake's cheek and she _thought_ about kissing her, about stealing her away from Adam in this one final, beautiful way.

And Blake looked back, but the word that trembled on her lips was _teammate_.

Not because there wasn't the possibility of more. But Blake didn't need someone to swoop in and try to take Adam's place in her heart. What she needed was people to stand beside her, to help her find her own footing, to _be there_ with her when the path became slippery with ice and the world around was cold and grim.

Blake didn't need a lover to wrest her away from her abusive ex.

She just needed a friend to help her figure out where to aim when she drove the blade home and finally saved herself.

So Yang wrapped her arms around Blake, and they both cried a bit as the truth washed over them, and then they dried their eyes and walked hand in hand to where the rest of their team needed them.

It was more intimate than kissing would be, anyway.

5.

They should have kissed after they had their Huntress licenses.

So much had happened. So much disappointment and grief and _running_ , always running, and now, for at least a little bit, they were _safe_.

They had _time_. Not much of it, maybe. No one knew exactly when things were going to get bad, but everyone knew that they _were_.

But for now they were safe. Even if it was just for a little bit, they could stop running. And someone was telling them they had done _well_ , that they had acted like the Huntresses they always wanted to be, and it was beautiful.

It wasn't _right_. It wasn't how any of it was supposed to happen. Yang didn't even have to twitch the fingers on her metal hand to know it wasn't _right_. But it was something.

Blake came to her, and their fingers twined together, skin against skin. The building they were in was climate-controlled, but it still felt warmer, somehow, to have Blake's fingers in hers.

“Real Huntresses.”

“Like we both didn't know that already.” Yang tightened her fingers around Blake's.

“Now the _rest_ of the world knows, too.” Blake smiled, and it would have been so easy to kiss her.

But there was so much else going on, so much else still to do, so much _risk_ , so Yang waited.

She wouldn't have done it, a year ago.

But the people they had been a year ago died with Beacon, so that wasn't a surprise to anyone.

+1

There are Grimm everywhere.

It's the absolute worst time for them to kiss. Everything is falling apart and Salem has all the cards and all they're doing is putting a band-aid over the gaping arterial wound that is destroying their world.

Yang looks up at the impossible forces descending on them, grabs Blake by both shoulders, and presses their lips together.

At first Blake freezes, and Yang thinks she did this wrong. She's ruined everything between them, and the only good thing about one of them probably dying today is that they won't have to live with the aftermath of this.

Then Blake's hands are in her hair, Blake's lips are pressing back against her, and everything is still awful but at the same time it's _wonderful_.

Blake is the one who pulls away. She's always been the cautious one, the sensible one, and Yang's injury hasn't changed that.

Blake's lips are red and swollen, and Yang knows it's not from the cold. _She_ did that. She put a mark on Blake that is making Blake blush and smile and look so very, very _happy_. Surely this means it can't be the end. Surely the end of the world wouldn't be so cruel as to crush something like this.

Except she's seen too many hopes and dreams shattered over the course of the last year to fool even herself for long. The world doesn't care about their happiness, about what they want or what they've done to get here.

If fate exists, it's two god-forces battling each other over the pawns that are the rest of them, and Yang doesn't know if the right one is going to win this time. A vicious, angry, still-hurt part of her wants to say that there _isn't_ a right one, but she knows better. She's seen the pain in Oscar's eyes, in Ozpin's eyes—in Ozma's eyes, during the horror-story that almost broke them all. One of these god-forces _cares_ , and the other uses that caring against him, and they will all be crushed in the tidal-wave of misery that is bearing down upon them.

“We're going to be all right.” Blake's hand cups her cheek, a mirror of the comfort that Yang gave so long ago.

“I don't know if we will be.” Yang doesn't think she would have said as much to any of the others. She is Ruby's strong big sister; she is Weiss' solid friend. She does not want Blake to see her as broken, but for Blake to see her as _vulnerable_... that's all right.

“Then we'll _make_ it all right.” Blake leans in and kisses her again, and Yang hears a symphony, a building crescendo.

Even if it's only the approaching Grimm, it's still the perfect sound-track for this moment they've both been dancing around for too long.

“Tonight.” Yang takes Blake's fingers in her metal ones, squeezes them gently. “When we've made it through. You, me, dinner, more kissing...”

Blake's eyebrows arch up. “ _More_ than kissing?”

“That's not—”

“I'll hold you to that, Yang.”

And then Blake is gone, darting off into the snow and the screams.

Yang shrugs Ember Celica down into ready position, turning a glare on the horde of Grimm. “All right, then. Pre-dinner date is a go.”

Yang charges into the fight, because whether they're kissing or not, whether they're children or adults or just terrible balls of trauma, they're part of a team.

And that team is made up of Huntresses.

And they're going to save the gods-damned world, no matter who they have to kick in the teeth to do so.


End file.
